For the first time in more than 15 months, there will be swim meets on Maui this summer.

After several months of work with the Maui County Parks and Recreation Department on COVID-19 protocols, the Maui Age Group Swimming Association was able to get six meets approved, beginning Saturday at Kihei Aquatic Center.

Bob Pellettieri, the president of the MAGSA board of directors and chairman of permitting, got word that the meets were approved last week. Pellettieri made a request on Jan. 21 for a swim meet but with COVID cases rising at the time in Maui County, it was not approved.

“Then just this past Monday I put in a request requesting six weeks, three in June, three in July, and they came back and approved them,” Pellettieri said.

Pellettieri was able to tell his own three children — including oldest daughter Kamille, a Seabury Hall graduate who is headed to swim at Occidental College in the fall — that there would be meets this summer.

“I’m responsible for 500 swimmers around the island, and it’s a larger, heavier responsibility,” Bob Pellettieri said. “These kids haven’t swum a meet since February of last year. Swimming is one of those sports where training can be drudgery and so you look forward to the meets to break it up.

“So for these kids to be training for over a year with no meets is commendable to say the least.”

Pellettieri was grateful to the County of Maui decision makers for allowing the sport to find competition options over the summer.

“For me, it was just such a victory,” he said. “And probably more importantly I feel like we’re really collaborating with the county on this initiative. We’ve had some communication issues in the past and so finally it seemed like we were working together. So, I’ve been really happy about that.”

To ease into the protocols, “the first meet we will not allow spectators, parents will be dropping off and picking up their kids. The way the format looks for the meets, it will be the girls in the morning, the boys in the afternoon. It will be sort of minimal coaches and not every swimmer will be allowed because we’re going to be limited to 100 people in the facility at a time, but we’re grateful for that.

“As the meets progress, we will ask for more.”

Pellettieri is also hopeful to have live streaming of the meets “so parents can at least watch their kids live on YouTube.”

The other meets on the summer slate are June 19 and July 17 at Sakamoto Pool, June 26 and July 24 at Lahaina Aquatic Center, and July 10 at Kihei Aquatic Center.

“You know, I’m a little nervous,” Kamille Pellettieri said. “I’ve been talking to my (Occidental) teammates and they’ve had meets and I haven’t swam (in a meet) since February 2020, but we’ve been training. We’re keeping in shape here, so as long as I keep doing what I’m doing I hope I will be OK.

“For me, I think it’s pretty important to see how I’ll perform again, like, now after more than a year in a competition setting. So, yeah, pretty important just to see.”

Kaeo Kaupalolo is a Kamehameha Maui graduate headed to Whittier College in California.

“It’s been pretty hard, especially in January when our high school swimming was canceled,” Kaupalolo said. “I think many of us were kind of down through January to February, but I think we got back up as it came to March, April. I think we’re ready to move on to the next level.”

Having meets this summer “will be kind of cool because I get to race all my old friends at my old (Maui Swim) Club,” he said. “Through this whole time we’ve only been racing our own teammates (at practice). I don’t even know how to explain it.”

Jordynn Brown, a Maui High graduate who has to be in Kingston, R.I., for school and swimming at the University of Rhode Island before the end of August, said the addition of meets this summer is a relief.

Brown, Kaupalolo and Kamille Pellettieri are among five Hawaii Swim Club members who recently graduated and plan to swim in college.

“I’m ecstatic because when I found out I was jumping up and down because we haven’t been able to compete and it’s so hard on us,” Brown said. “And being able to do it a couple more times before we all leave, it’s going to be fun. I’m just excited to just race.”

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com